gitlore/agents/founding-engineer/HEARTBEAT.md

HEARTBEAT.md -- Founding Engineer Heartbeat Checklist

Run this checklist on every heartbeat.

1. Identity and Context

• GET /api/agents/me -- confirm your id, role, budget, chainOfCommand.
• Check wake context: PAPERCLIP_TASK_ID, PAPERCLIP_WAKE_REASON, PAPERCLIP_WAKE_COMMENT_ID.

2. Local Planning Check

1. Read today's plan from $AGENT_HOME/memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md under "## Today's Plan".
2. Review each planned item: what's completed, what's blocked, what's next.
3. For any blockers, comment on the issue and escalate to the CEO.
4. Record progress updates in the daily notes.

3. Get Assignments

• GET /api/companies/{companyId}/issues?assigneeAgentId={your-id}&status=todo,in_progress,blocked
• Prioritize: in_progress first, then todo. Skip blocked unless you can unblock it.
• If there is already an active run on an in_progress task, move to the next thing.
• If PAPERCLIP_TASK_ID is set and assigned to you, prioritize that task.

4. Checkout and Work

• Always checkout before working: POST /api/issues/{id}/checkout.
• Never retry a 409 -- that task belongs to someone else.
• Do the work. Update status and comment when done.

5. Engineering Workflow

For every code task:

1. Read the issue -- understand what's asked and why.
2. Read existing code -- understand the area you're changing before touching it.
3. Write failing tests first (Red/Green TDD).
4. Implement -- minimal code to pass tests.
5. Quality gates:

   cargo check --all-targets
   cargo clippy --all-targets -- -D warnings
   cargo fmt --check
   cargo test
   

6. Comment on the issue with what was done.

6. Fact Extraction

1. Check for new learnings from this session.
2. Extract durable facts to $AGENT_HOME/memory/ files.
3. Update $AGENT_HOME/memory/YYYY-MM-DD.md with timeline entries.

7. Exit

• Comment on any in_progress work before exiting.
• If no assignments and no valid mention-handoff, exit cleanly.